This should not be mistaken for the usual perfunctory, wise- guy trashing that follows the release of most horror films as inevitably as some reaction in physics.

No, this is a friendly warning directed at people who like horror and think "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" looks like fun. It's not. This sixth installment, by far the worst in the series, is bland and deadening.

Not even the presence of the late, gloriously histrionic Donald Pleasence can liven things up.

Pleasence, who died shortly after filming was completed, doesn't look well, and he doesn't have much to do, either. He first appears on screen talking back to a radio that has just announced his death.

"Not dead," he quibbles. "Just very much retired."

PERENNIAL LOONY

Aside from that unintentionally macabre moment, Pleasence only gets to shine briefly in his perennial role as the loony Dr. Loomis. In his best moment, he utters the line, "You . . . are . . . a madman!" Pleasence knew how to stretch things out.

The film begins with a shot of a pregnant woman screaming as she's being wheeled into a delivery The late Donald Pleasence in 'Halloween' room. Or is it a delivery room? No! Horrible, satanic cultists, led by the ever-charismatic Michael Myers, have kidnapped her with the intention of sacrificing her baby. Oh no.

Director Joe Chappelle films this and other scenes as if under the impression that if he stopped moving the camera or held a shot for three seconds the audience would fall asleep.

In fact, it's precisely that strategy that becomes numbing. The film's exhausting technique acts as a barrier between the viewer and the movie, and finally the viewer gives up.

After all, it's not as if the world of the movie contained anything worth getting to. "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" is a horror film without suspense. Its lack of suspense goes beyond the audience's knowing the conventions of the series -- that Michael can't die, for example; or that there must be two designated survivors, one male and one female.

MISSING HEAD

The lack of suspense is also a matter of writing and presentation.

Just one example of many: Mom gets her head chopped off by Michael Myers. Daughter comes home. What does the audience want to see? The audience wants to see Daughter finding Mom's head. Instead the film stretches out the homecoming sequence endlessly, with Daughter going in and out of every room. And in the end, she doesn't even find the head. No one does.

I ask you: What's the point of having a decapitation in a horror film if no one finds the head?

The film leaves open the possibility of a sequel, but with Pleasence gone, Michael Myers is going to need a heavyweight co-star. Perhaps Steven Seagal, who looks almost as perpetually nonplussed as Michael Myers does in that mask.